Not many baseball fans like MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred for multiple reasons.
Most hate the new rules (which have been very positive), others disapproved of the handling of the lockout in 2021 and 2022, and plenty hate how he handled the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal.
Well, the fans are not the only ones who disapprove of the Houston situation – Manfred himself has regrets.
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Manfred noted, again, that he wished he could take back what he said when he called the World Series trophy a “piece of metal.” He made the comment when discussing why the Astros were not stripped of the title.
Houston did not have their title taken away and was given total immunity under the condition that they came out with the truth regarding the sign-stealing scandal. However, Manfred regrets that, as well.
“I’m not sure that I would have approached it with giving players immunity,” he told Time. “Once we gave players immunity, it puts you in a box as to what exactly you were going to do in terms of punishment. I might have gone about the investigative process without that grant of immunity and see where it takes us. Starting with, I’m not going to punish anybody, maybe not my best decision ever.”
In 2017, the Astros won their first ever World Series. However, two years later, it was revealed that they used a trash-can banging system to relay signs to batters in real-time throughout that entire season and parts of the 2018 season.
It also has been speculated that they cheated in 2019, particularly with buzzers (notably on Jose Altuve’s pennant-clinching walk-off home run against the New York Yankees), but that has never been proven.
Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow, manager AJ Hinch and bench coach Alex Cora were suspended by Major League Baseball. The Mets also parted ways with Carlos Beltran, who played for that team, as their manager without even managing a game.
Cora was managing the Boston Red Sox at the time the scandal leaked, and they parted ways, but he was brought back for the 2021 season.
The Astros lost the World Series in seven games in both 2019 and 2021, but returned to the mountain top last season with their victory over the Philadelphia Phillies.
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